On the 8th March, the San Marino Song Contest grand finale took place, and after a series of semi finals and a second chance round, Gabry Ponte was crowned the overall winner with ‘Tutta L’Italia’.
The fun dance entry with folk elements will represent San Marino in Basel in May, but its journey there has been all but ordinary. Of course, it began all the way back in Sanremo as this year’s theme song.
Let’s take a look at the entire ‘Tutta L’Italia’ journey so far, and recap its journey through two countries.
Sanremo 2025
Originally, ‘Tutta L’Italia’ was submitted as an entry into Sanremo 2025. However upon judging, artistic director Carlo Conti felt that the fact that Gabry Ponte isn’t the main singer of the track, and that the vocalists don’t have center focus, made it unsuitable to compete on the Ariston Stage. However, he was enamoured by the song, and officially chose it to be the official ‘jingle’ of this year.
“[Gabry Ponte] had presented [Tutta L’Italia] to me in the competition, but he was a DJ and it was not clear who could sing it. A very strong song, so I decided to use it as the theme song”
– Carlo Conti in an interview from Fanpage (translated from Italian).
Speaking fondly of the Sanremo 2025 songs, Conti also expressed that all 30 (including the withdrawn Emis Killa) artists would have represented Italy well in Eurovision, adding that, in fact, he would say all 35, including Gabry Ponte and the Sanremo Giovani artists.
Any Sanremo fan that watched throughout the week will remember the song being played very often, both throughout the show and before/after ad breaks. Carlo Conti even joked that the audience will have to learn the lyrics. And after it went viral in Italy during the week, Saturday’s final saw Gabry Ponte take to the stage to perform it live before the show kicked off.
Ironically, following this many people both in Italy and outside of jokingly called for it to represent the nation in Eurovision. But no one could quite predict what happened next.
San Marino Song Contest 2025
On the 25th February, the 20 finalists of the San Marino Song Contest were announced (including those competing in semi finals airing at the time, therefore leaking the results of those). The lineup included Besa (represented Albania in Eurovision 2024 with ‘Titan’), Melodifestivalen veterans David Lindgren and Boris René in the trio CRL alongside Greg G Curtis, EMA entrants King Foo, withdrawn Vidbir 2025 wildcard entrant Teslenko, Sanremo veterans Bianca Atzei, and Pierdavide Carone, Sanremo 2009 winner Marco Carta, and Sanremo Giovani 2025 entrants Questo e Quello, notably with their Sanremo Giovani song ‘Bella Balla’. Overall, artists came from a total of seven countries, namely Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Albania, Ukraine, Slovenia, and San Marino.
Gabry Ponte was among the “big artists” who automatically qualified to compete in the final, and was invited by San Marino themselves to participate.
“I was invited to participate in the San Marino Song Contest where the artist who will go to Eurovision will be chosen, and I decided to accept to try to bring all of Italy to all of Europe, together with you”
– Gabry Ponte’s post statement on Instagram after being announced as part of the lineup (translated from Italian).
After an enjoyable show, a ranking from 20th-4th was drawn up, and the podium took to the stage. Firstly, third place was awarded to Teslenko with ‘Storm’. It was then announced that ‘Tutta L’Italia’ was victorious, beating The Rumpled’s ‘You Get Me So High’ into second place.
The song has received great reception online, as well as charting at 15th in Italy’s official singles chart, 23rd on their airplay chart, and also at 30th in Lithuania’s airplay chart.
Regardless of its official placing in May, this journey has undoubtedly been unique to follow.
What do you think of ‘Tutta L’Italia being a Eurovision entry? How do you think San Marino will perform in Basel? Let us know!
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